Hey everybody. I made a press. It is 20 tons and it weighs 60 lbs and it can be shipped UPS. I made it for jewelers. It is primarily for die pressing.I tried to make it as affordable as possible without it looking homemade or like I cobbled it together in my backyard. It is made of 1/2 inch thick steel plate that is plasma cut and it has a 20 ton bottle jack in it.
I am not going to make up any stories about the jack, it is just a cheap Chinese bottle jack. They work well and can be replaced by anyone anywhere in the world. You can put a better jack in it if you want. I will sell it without the jack for 40 bucks less, that is what the jacks cost me. I suppose I could paint them and take off the stickers. Maybe that would confuse you into thinking that I have a special source for these things that others are not privy to, but that would be silly. They are what they are.
I made the top platen small because you have to center the work, you can’t put the work off to the side and expect to press it, so I made mine easy to center. The platen is 3 inches. I sell a platen enlarger that makes it 6 inches if you need it. Like I said, this is for jewelers – people who make pendants, earrings and small parts. It is not for people who want to press license plates or stuff bigger than a few inches.
I also made a 50 ton since bigger is better. It looks like the 20 ton, only double the size. It too has an inexpensive jack. You can buy the same jack at Harbor Freight for 70 bucks on sale or you can get a real hydraulic system from Enerpac. Then it will be great, but the jack that is in it will work fine for years. With 50 tons you can coin medalians or mint your own money -that’s what our government is doing so why can’t we?!
Anyway, back to my blatant self-serving Capitalist post. I am trying to stay on task without going into some left wing Bolshevik rant. It did pain me to buy Chinese jacks but the alternative was not practical for most people. But that is not to say that you could not upgrade to a nice American made one in the future, they cost more than I am selling the whole press for but they will last for years.
I also made tooling for it. I made a bunch of silhouette dies, they are 1/4 inch steel plate and they are cut individually so you can just buy the one you want. I have the contained urethane blocks in 2 inch and 3 inch. I only mark them up enough to cover my cost. The only way to get them affordably was to buy several feet at a time and cut them up. I did not make the urethane, I bought it from a couple different sources that sell the stuff. They are not interested in selling a couple of inches at a time so unless you want to go into the urethane business it is probably better to get it from me. I make the containers from schedule 40 pipe and cut out a base and weld it together, then I turn a bevel on the top and most importantly stamp my name on the bottom and paint it. If you have a chop saw and a welder you could make them, they are real easy. I make them one inch deep – that seems to be enough. I didn’t make any square ones because all the urethane I bought was round. If you guys want some square ones I will make them, otherwise I like the round ones.
The presses that I have made only have 3 places on them that are welded so they are very safe and strong. I have tried to destroy one by putting double the tonnage to it and was unable to break it or bend it. I figured I had better do the worst case scenario since I know some gorrilla out there will try to turn coal into diamonds with the thing. I used a 50 ton pancake cylinder in it to test it. I then tried to destroy the cylinder and I was successful in that by putting a cheater bar on the pump handle and running it up as tight as I could then standing on the handle and jumping until it blew a seal in the pump and some oil leaked out. If you do that to the pump you can fix it yourself – the seals are 5 cents at the hardware store. Anyway, that is what I have been making for the past few weeks and that concludes my self-serving blog. Here is the link to the website: http://www.potterusa.com
kevinpotter
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Kevin,
Nice looking work
How much for the die set to make coal into diamonds, say 1ct.
JeffD
Nice. I’ve been thinking of mass-producing my heart on a stem, http://shelbyvision.userblogs.ganoksin.coms/2009/02/15/heart-on-a-stem/, and one of the things I’ve considered is having the hearts die cut. the one in the picture is 3″ across and 20 gauge brass. I’m trying one 4″ across to see if it will puff out more, but I might rather use thinner brass and stay at 3″. Would one of your presses work for that, and how hard (expensive) would it be to make a punch and die to do that?